


and the crisscross of what is true won't get to us

by sayonide



Series: 3 rounds and a sound [13]
Category: RWBY
Genre: It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Light Angst, Trauma, Yang Xiao Long has Abandonment Issues, but we know this, phantom pains
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:08:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27502063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sayonide/pseuds/sayonide
Summary: Where things go very wrong, and then very right, told through lies.
Relationships: Blake Belladonna/Yang Xiao Long
Series: 3 rounds and a sound [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2002933
Comments: 1
Kudos: 41





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i really hate summaries can you tell now
> 
> the bees refuse to stay just friends in my writing but as of c1 they do not have those implications so

The first time one of them lies is during their initiation.

"I could have taken them," She bluffs, and a teasing smirk that's far too familiar for their second time meeting is tossed her way. With a sheepish grin, she hops over the patches of dissolving Grimm to fall into step with her new partner. "I mean, okay, I could have taken care of half that Grimm. Maybe a leg. Probably two. Hey, uh, you're Blake, right? From last night."

She laughs, and Yang almost forgives herself for tripping over every bit of tact she had for that. "Yes, Yang. From last night."

"Great! Great. Hi, I'm Yang!"

"Ruby's sister, I remember," Blake says, still with the same amused tone, and Yang winces.

"Right, right, you did just say my name just now..."

Mercifully, Blake simply speeds up. "Let's go," she calls. "We can't be the last group to get a relic."

-

The next time one of them lies to the other comes a few weeks later. It's a day off, and they're all sprawled around after finishing all their homework the night before in hopes of a free day. Judging by the overly hyped up music, Yang finishes her game, and tosses her Scroll down to her bed. A moment later, a waterfall of blonde hair falls over the edge of the top bunk and into her field of view.

"Whatcha readin'?" She asks, and Blake shoves her book down under the covers.

"Uh, _The Hunter's Children_ , why?" Blake shoots out. Yang glances at the lump of book.

"Riiight," She drawls, and swings down from her knees to grab it in one fluid motion. Blake lets out a yelp, but she's too slow to keep Yang from reading the title. "Ninjas of Love, huh?" She teases. "I didn't expect you to be into this, but, woah."

Blake goes red, bow stiffening up. "Uh-"

Yang nudges her, swinging side to side from the movement. "Hey, I won't tell," she jokes. "If you let me borrow that for nighttime, maybe." And with a wink, she twisted back up to continue her game.

-

A week later, Yang shows up to Combat Training without her gauntlets. When Goodwitch announces that they'll be practicing against their partners, Blake places Gambol on the ground and heads down to their section of the gym.

"What's got you weaponless today?" She asks, circling. 

"Well, you can't always have them on you." 

"We could've just put them down before coming here, Yang. I saw you talking to Goodwitch."

Yang launches herself forward and starts raining punches, forcing Blake to drop the subject to avoid her. 

"You could just say to drop it," She calls out once she's a safe distance away. 

"What?" Yang asks, and drops out of her stance. "Oh, no, I just didn't want us to get in trouble with Goodwitch. They got jammed up, they're just still in pieces since I had to take them apart. I didn't have time to put them both back together before class."

It's almost convincing, and Yang dropping back down to dart over serves as an excellently timed distraction. Unfortunately for her, though, Blake was well versed in what lies sounded like. She lets it drop in favour of not embarrassing herself in front of the whole class, but resolves to talk to Yang about it when they get back to their room.

When they do get back, though, Ruby's already sitting at her desk, with a very familiar mess of yellow and black scattered around her. Blake turns to look at the girl standing by her side, and raises an eyebrow.

"Is Ruby supposed to be doing that?"

The girl in question spins around in her seat, confused. "What do you mean? Why wouldn't I be?"

A plume of smoke rises out from Yang's mouth, red spreading across her face. 

"Well, Yang told me she was cleaning Ember Celica, and was about to put it back together..." Blake trails off, before Ruby lets out a surprised "HAH!" and wiggles the magazine at Yang. "You told her you were just cleaning it out? _All four of us_ know that you do that in, like, an hour, tops." 

"So what's going on then?" Blake prompts Ruby, who immediately seems to forget about her sister's embarrassment and starts rambling about the technical terms of how Celica works, and how _awesome_ her new modifications are going to make it. 

"Aren't you glad you know now?" Yang mutters over, but the proud smile on her face gives away how she feels about Ruby's taking apart and messing with her weapon.

-

Yang notices things about her sometimes. Especially her choices of accessory. 

_Especially_ when said accessory choices move for no particular reason. 

It was about two weeks before the Vytal Tournament, which just about everyone knew, but no one in their class had been in the arena before. It was a rare Goodwitch class where they spent the entire hour and a half sitting in their seats and writing notes, and between notes Yang could lean back and scan the room without the pressure of noting everyone's combat styles and weaknesses. 

When Professor Goodwitch started lecturing them on the advantages and disadvantages of the arena settings, she drifted into faunus opponents. The most adaptable and most unpredictable in every setting. 

It's because of this that her gaze ends up drifting to Blake. Blake, and her bow. Her bow, which is pressing forward and tensed, and when Yang shifts in her seat to get a closer look, the side closer to her relaxes and the outside of it twitches. As if something inside had bumped into it.

With a slap of a baton against the desk, Yang's attention is dragged back to the front of the room. Afterwards, though, she pulls Blake aside and makes sure that everyone else heads back to their dorms and away from them before asking.

"So we've been partners for a while now."

Blake raises an eyebrow from where she's standing, and Yang immediately realizes what it sounds like she's about to say. "Wait- no! Not that I _wouldn't_ , but that's not the point today, I just needed to ask you a question but _not to the dance._ "

It's a few seconds too late that Yang realizes that she's very close to hitting the point of rambling, and promptly shuts up about the dance. 

"Um, what I was actually wondering, was just that we've been partners for a while, and I'd like to think that I trust you. What I wanted to know was... Does Ozpin know? That you lied on your transcripts?"

Blake freezes for a moment. Slight, but noticeable, and her breathing's shakier than before when she responds. "Lied? Why would I need to lie on them?"

"You're required to put your race in them."

She stiffens up fully at that, and Yang hurries to reassure her. 

"No, no, I swear I'm not going to tell anyone!" She rushes out. "I just wanted to say, y'know, it can't be comfortable to hide it, and it's alright, and I didn't feel alright with knowing and not telling you."

"I didn't lie," Blake insists. "Whatever you saw, I don't know what that could have been." She's near panicked, enough so that Yang backs off quickly.

"I'm not going to push," she assures. "You can tell me when you're ready, or never. We can go back to the room and forget that this happened if you'd like."

A week later, she gets into an argument with Weiss and lets out the truth. As soon as she does, her gaze falls to Yang, who's just looking at her. No judgement, but surprised. And she'll deny this later, but fear, too. 

-

"Have you slept? At all?" 

Blake blinks up at her. "Yeah, why?"

"Would you mind helping Ruby with her math? You can drop her off with JNPR if you want, I just have plans with CFVY and didn't realize what day it would be."

"Sure, where is she?"

"Coming here now, I already told her I won't be here, thank you!" She calls, and darts out the door.

Ruby finishes her homework before Yang gets back, and the three of them are basking in the feeling of having no homework when there's a knock at the door.

Velvet's standing on the other side. "Where's Ruby?" She asks, and when Ruby waves at her, she waves back and holds up her camera. "Is it alright if I take some pictures of Yang's new upgrade? The one I have is a bit outdated."

With a look of confusion, Ruby explains, "Yang hasn't been here for a few hours now, we thought she was out with your team."

Velvet stares at her with a matching expression. "The entirety of Team CFVY's been in our room today. Maybe she wanted to meet up at lunch, and we forgot?"

"She was in a rush this morning. We talked for a bit just after breakfast, and then she ran off, and none of us have seen her since." Velvet frowns. "Well, I hope she comes back soon, then. If she doesn't by dinner, you could get Ozpin to let you out after hours to search. There's a lot of rules about missing teammates."

They thank her and, when Velvet closes the door and leaves, look around at each other. 

"So, dinner."

"Dinner," Ruby confirms. "If she's not back, we go looking."

So they wait, more tense than before, for the clock to hit 6:30. 

At 6:15, the door opens, and Yang walks in.

"Where were you?" Weiss demands, only to be waved off. 

"I told you all, I was with CFVY all day."

"That's not what Velvet told us," Ruby points out. Yang freezes, looking over them.

"You went to talk to Velvet?"

" _Velvet_ came to talk to _us_."

Yang lets out a frustrated groan and flops into her bed. "It's not your business where I went. If I knew you were gonna push me about it, I should've just said I was going to Junior's."

Ruby frowns. "You shouldn't be at Junior's." 

"Exactly! But at least you'd never search me out."

With a sigh, Ruby nudges Yang's leg with her arm. "Yeah. I wouldn't've. You don't have to tell us where you went, just promise that you were safe?"

"Of course I was," She assures. "I'd never leave you alone like that. _Any_ of you," She adds, looking around the room.

-

Blake barely manages to slam her notebook shut in time before Yang's head comes peering over. 

"Who was that?" She asks. Blake presses a hand against the top of the notebook, ears pressing back against the stiff fabric of her bow.

" _Nothing_ ," She says, and Yang takes one look at her before opening her mouth again, backing off. 

"You don't have to tell me anything, you know. I just saw a lot of drawings of that dude. Pretty cool sword he got there, but I'll shut up if you need."

Blake takes a breath to steady it out, and smiles. 

"No, he's no one important. Just a character who's been stuck in my mind."

Yang looks down at her from where she's standing behind Blake's chair. "You sure?" She asks, and Blake nods. 

"Yeah. Completely sure."

-

She watches, cooling down from her own round, as her partner sprints forward to cover Weiss. They'd swapped for the day, for extra practice, and it was glaringly obvious that it was needed when Blake saw a shape blur past her and instinctively moved to give space for Yang to hit and fall back. It was exactly how they had planned to execute it, and would've gone perfectly if she had been setting up for Yang. Only problem was that it was _Ruby_ who was speeding forward.

Looking out, Weiss and Yang seem to be having the same problems. More than that, though, Yang was adapting in exactly the wrong ways.

Blake watches as she shot to the other side of the gym, taking blow after blow until Weiss throws a glyph under her and pulls her back so they could do more damage as a pair. 

Afterwards, Weiss practically drags her off of the arena. 

"What was that?" She demands, and Yang reaches up to scratch her neck.

"I don't know what you mean," she mumbles.

"I can handle myself in a fight!" Weiss snaps out, and Yang looks over to her. 

"I know," she says, "But I can handle it first, and then you can handle yourselves afterwards, and it's basically a strategy of it's own!"

"It's not," Blake interjects. "If it gets you killed, it doesn't count."

Yang huffs, rolling her eyes. "Alright, sure. I'll stay in line with the rest of you. No rushing in."

-

_It was the day that Yang had confessed why the fiasco with Mercury had hurt her so bad. They were sitting off to the side of the stadium, and she told Blake about what had happened, after Summer had died. How bad everything hurt when she realized that everyone was gone. That now, she couldn't stand the thought of someone she cared about leaving anymore._

_"Everyone left," she explained. "And I spent so long trying to rebuild things with just me and Ruby, I don't think I can stand that to be ripped away again."_

_"I'm sorry," Blake whispered. "I know you're nothing like him. I got scared, but I'm not leaving."_

_"Thanks," she says back with a small half smile.. "I won't let you regret that."_

_Blake reached over, squeezed her hand._

_"I'll stay," she promised. "For as long as you want me here."_


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i planned to get this out yesterday but listen it's literally midnight and i just spent 23 minutes waiting because i didn't want to post it before the 12th and by the time i remembered it was already 00:00

When she wakes up, her arm's gone. 

That's not the painful part. The painful part of everything, the part that hurts, is that Weiss is gone. Blake is gone.

Ruby explains what had happened, and she feels that familiar wave of protectiveness when she hears about Weiss. Dragged home, taken away from everyone, unable to be contacted, already back performing.

She has significantly less pity when Ruby tells her about Blake. Blake, who ran away, who had sat there soft and understanding when Yang had spilled her guts about the people who left and the issues they'd given her before getting up and doing the same.

Ruby says that she sent Sun to make sure that she's safe, and Yang imagines Blake standing at the foot of her bed, holding her lost arm.

 _I don't need you_ , she thinks. _I hope I never see you again._

-

"Do you feel guilty?"

To her embarrassment, it makes Blake jump. She turns to face Sun, who's leaning against the area of the railing she hadn't been able to see. 

"What?"

"Do you feel guilty?" He repeats. "Do you regret it? Running away from them?"

She scowls at him. "Why? What does it matter?"

"I think they miss you," he says. "I don't think you should've run. They don't blame you."

"They should," she bites out. 

"Should they? Or do you just want them to?"

"I don't care either way," she lies. "I don't regret leaving them that night."

-

She sees her every night, on the ground in Beacon. The heat of the fire's overwhelming, making everything hazy, but a cry of pain slices through the smoke. 

A mess of red and black shows up through the flames. Bright red, pinning down a body, and every time the same thoughts passes through her mind first.

 _It's a lot less cool in real life_.

The thought's blown away when she registers the scene in front of her. 

Blake, on the ground.

A sword through her hip.

And that same figure she'd seen in Blake's notebook, standing there, holding the sword.

In a flash, the air around her doesn't feel quite so hot anymore as her semblance activates. 

_"Get away from her!"_ She screams, every night. She races forward, trying to take his sword out of his hands, rip his arms away, throw him off of her, _snap his neck, anything,_ and every night she watches as his arm comes up and in a moment of shock she can't feel anything before she feels everything at once. 

Pain, slicing through her flesh down into her bones, severing nerves, and then shock. When she tries to remember everything that had happened through the haze she'd been thrown into, there's nothing. Just flashes of sounds and emotions and the occasional blur of colour. 

If she's lucky, that's where she wakes up, and that's where she does wake up today. Sweating, panting, still seeing red, and missing an arm that sends her into the fetal position from the pain.

In her haze of panic and pain, she tries to get angry to avoid it. To trigger her semblance somehow just to make it lessen, and while searching around for someone to blame, her mind lands on that nights and her longer dreams.

Blake. Blake, leaving her, carrying her to the rest of their team and then running away. Blake, promising her she'd never leave, and then turning tail and abandoning her with one less arm, two less teammates, and the ruins of a school.

And she shoves down the sadness that comes with thinking about her to tell herself that Blake left.

 _She got exactly what she deserved that night_ , she thinks, ignoring the knot in her stomach screaming at her to take it back.

-

"...I'm worried about you doing it because of _you_."

She'd reassured her mom that that wasn't going to happen, but it was clear that she didn't believe it. 

But her mom wasn't completely right. It wouldn't just be because she was responsible for who she turned out. It wasn't just shame for utterly destroying her younger self's plans the way that she had. 

It was because she'd killed people. Even worse, she'd _hurt_ people, and then left them alive to suffer. She wouldn't be dying for herself, or for Adam, it'd be for them. She didn't leave for him; she left to feel that same pain she'd forced onto families. Innocent families, who had wanted to come home to their loved ones like she had been able to.

 _Not anymore._ Every second that it hurt was going against everything that her mom had just talked about, but it was another second that Blake knew that she got exactly what she deserved. 

_Yang's hurting too_ , some part of her consciousness points out.

 _Shut up_ , she responds.

"I hope I never see you again," she says into the forest behind their house, as if speaking the words out loud would make them any more true.

-

"Why does it matter? She made her choice," she spits out. Standing and walking away, she can practically feel Weiss's gaze on her back, so she makes sure to slam the door extra hard.

When she gets to the kitchen, Qrow's making sandwiches. "What's up?" He asks, and she ignores him in favour of going to an unoccupied room, curling into a ball.

Anger, she remembers, comes easier than sadness. So she digs into that part of her, forcing out enough blind anger to tell herself that _you hate her. You hate her. I couldn't care less if she never fucking returns._

But it recoils as if burnt _("I'm not immune to flaming balls of gas, Blake!" and she tamps down the memory as soon as it rises)_ , and she growls, slamming her fists together to try and trigger her semblance.

All it does is remind her of how her right arm was so much stronger now, how she couldn't really feel things the same way ever again, and as the constant ache grew into a burning in her missing forearm, she thinks about _that monster_ and how he _took her away,_ before flapping her right arm to shock herself back. 

No. He didn't do anything she couldn't recover from. It was _Blake's_ fault she left, she reminds herself. _Blake's fault_. 

She wonders why she can never seem to understand that consistently.

-

Sun's watching her again. It was an unproductive, if distracting, day, and the both of them almost can't wait to get back inside to warmth. 

But as they're walking back down the road, he's watching her. No words, no pressing, which she's grateful for, but it's almost as maddening. Finally, when they're halfway back and he still hasn't stopped, she snaps.

"What do you need?" She asks, spinning around to catch him dead in the eyes. He takes a step back and tosses up his arms.

"Woah! I thought you needed some space!" He protests, and she sighs. "Yes, Sun," she explains, "But if you're just going to stare like that, you might as well ask."

He smiles then, sheepishly. "Yeah, I guess I wasn't subtle. I dunno, I thought it'd be harder to spot if you were in front."

She raises an eyebrow at him, and he slumps a little more. 

"I just... Wanted to ask you. When you left. Yang. You really loved her, didn't you?"

Out of everything. All of the things he could've said, and he chooses the one that catches her off guard.

"W-what? What do you mean?" The alarm clear in her voice, and he raises his arms like he's about to get arrested again.

"I mean, that's kind of why I didn't want to ask, in case you reacted negatively, but I just... Well, you never really talk about her the same. Even back when we first met, when you were telling me about your teammates, I thought you guys were dating? Like, you know me, if I didn't-"

"Sun." She cuts him off. "It doesn't matter. She got hurt, I left, whatever we were before doesn't matter anymore."

"But it does!" He protests. "We have to leave Menagerie eventually, don't we? You guys can meet up again, and then it matters."

"She hates me," Blake tells him, flat. "So no. It doesn't."

"Well... Answer my question anyway? Because honestly, I've been wondering since we met, and it'd be nice to know for sure."

Blake looks out at the ocean between Menagerie and where Patch sits, and turns back to Sun.

"No. I don't feel anything of that sort towards her. Never have."

-

"What do you not get?" She snaps out at Weiss. "We're not tracking her down. We're not doing jack _shit_ until we get to the Relic of Knowledge and find the Maidens, and then we go right up to Salem's front porch. We don't need to waste our time looking for someone who _left_ us."

"We need Team RWBY!" Weiss argues weakly.

"We don't _need_ everyone. Team JNR's doing well for themselves, aren't they? Why do we _need_ Blake?"

"Well, you loved her, didn't you?"

"What?"

Weiss tilts her head up to look her in the eyes, gulping. 

"You loved her, didn't you? So we find her."

" _No_ ," Yang all but snarls out through the lump in her throat. "I didn't. And even if I did, you said _past tense._ "

"But you _did_ ," Weiss protests, reaching out to grab her left arm, which is promptly ripped away.

"I didn't," she insists, and manages to spit out a last "She left anyway," before spinning around so Weiss can't see her tears.

-

"That's a horrible idea," she teases, right between lighthearted and stubbornly serious, and Sun just shrugs in response. "We're headed that direction anyway," he points out. "Why not make the most of it?"

"...If we finish our business with the White Fang," she warns, and he nods.

"As soon as we do. White Fang first, girlfriend second."

"Only because you're pushing me to," she insists.

-

"That's all that matters. That we're all here together. Right?"

She looks up, meets those eyes she'd seen in her nightmares every night, and thinks about how hopeful Ruby had sounded. 

"Yeah," she says, and has to fight not to move away or cling in closer when Blake drops to her knees into the team hug.

-

Yang finds her curled into a ball in the space under a tree. She almost manages to sneak up behind her, but slips at the last second, and Blake's ears twitch over, and she follows it with her eyes.

"...Hey," Yang says, slipping into a space under the tree with her.

"Hey," she mumbles back, and an arm comes up to lean against the trunk above her head. She wishes it would drop down. 

"You're not with the group," Yang observes, and on a normal day it'd make her laugh. Today, though, she just curls in a little tighter and wishes harder for some kind of contact.

"You wanna say what's bugging you?" She tries again, and everything in Blake screams at her to say yes.

"Not really," she tells her instead, and so they sit.

-

Yang wakes up to a warmth crawling into her bed, and it takes her a bit to realize what's going on. It's been so long since she's had anything but nightmares to snap her out of sleep, and in her haze, she whispers, "Ruby?"

The warmth, the body, freezes beside her. "No," it whispers back, and she squints at the shape before registering a pair of triangles where Ruby doesn't have them.

"...Blake?"

Blake sits back, and there's enough light for Yang to catch her nodding. 

"If you want me to go..." She starts, and Yang shakes her head.

"It's alright," she says, still groggy from sleep. "C'mon in."

Blake nestles down against her, and Yang takes a second to yawn before mumbling, "can't believe you're using me for the cold again."

The body pressed up against her freezes, before she hears, "Yeah. Just for warmth."

-

But it's been weeks, maybe months, since they reunited. And Yang's had enough of lying about her feelings.

The next time they're caught outside together for training, she reaches out to grab Blake's arm.

"Hey," she says, "Let's go over there."

Blake nods, follows her to the edge of the forest, and drops to get ready for a fight, but Yang just steps closer and keeps Ember Celica unloaded.

"Huh?" She's asking, when Yang grips the front of her shirt. 

"Tell me the truth," she nearly demands, pressed up close. "Please. Just be honest. What do you want from us?"

"Uh- I- I don't know?" Blake stammers out, dropping her weapon in surprise.

"Because I know. And I know I've wanted you since Beacon."

"Wait. What?"

"So I need an answer, Blake, because I need to know if I should move on. I need to know if this is hopeless."

"Don't move on," she blurts out. "Please. I didn't know. If you do still, after everything I did, then yes. I want the same. I can't remember a time when I haven't."

Yang sighs in relief, and presses their foreheads together.

"You're sure?" She checks, peering into gold from about an inch away.

"Absolutely."

Over a year of separation, and finally, Yang leans in to hold her close, fully awake.

Her team. Her full team, healed, and back together, on the path to being even better than before.

**Author's Note:**

> get some rest if you need. set time aside for yourself.
> 
> two things.  
> 1) i was supposed to write a raven-centric one for today/yesterday, but bbb started going and i got swept up in it. raven'll be either tomorrow or after this is finished  
> 2) the line "with fronds like these, who needs anemones" has been stuck in my head since i heard it days ago


End file.
